


Life on the Farm

by Porsennasaurus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:29:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13433793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Porsennasaurus/pseuds/Porsennasaurus
Summary: A selection of snapshots of life among the Hogwarts Founders.





	1. The Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrases to try and include were:
> 
> “You speak only in lies. What makes this time different?”  
> “We were never quite going to understand each other.”  
> “Am I alone in this? ‘Cause I don’t know what’s going on.”  
> “This went exactly as planned and by that, I mean completely downhill.”  
> “I need to make my escape and if I don’t do it now, I never will.”  
> “You should have seen the look on their face when you walked out! Priceless.”

“You shoulda seen the look on their faces when you walked out! Priceless.” Sal materialized from the shadows beside the door as soon as she exited, the torchlight pooling strangely on the angles of his face.

Rowena barely managed not to shriek. 

“Oðinn auga, will you stop doing that? How do you even know what was going on in there?”

“There was a mouse in the wall...I may or may not have looked through its eyes.”

Rowena paused to consider the implications of that and sighed heavily.

“At least it wasn’t an earwig or some such.”

He cleared his throat.

“What?”

“Yeah, I tried a spider first. Didn’t work for some reason though...”

“Ugh!”

He burst out laughing at the look on her face.

“They’re just animals, same as any other! I can’t believe you’ll hew a man down in battle but you’re afraid of the littlest bitela.”

“I’m not afraid, don’t be ridiculous. They’re just repulsive.” she returned haughtily.

She turned on the spot and apparated, not seeing the mischievous look on his face...nor the eight-legged little creature that had suddenly found itself on the collar of her traveling cloak.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hengist had thought he would have a quiet night guarding the gap in the hawthorn hedge that formed the gate to the school.

Now, watching the Lady Hraefnclawu scream, flail, and set fire to her own fine wool cloak, he wondered again if coming here to this school was worth all the crazy things that happened at it.

He looked sideways to the man on his left, who was laughing hard enough to make himself sick.

“Am I alone in this? Cause I don’t know what’s going on.”

Sal finally managed to get himself under control and straightened up, still chuckling.

“This went exactly as planned, and by that, I mean completely downhill.”

Hengist rolled his eyes.

“She’s going to kill you, you know that – right?”

“Yeah, but damn it’ll have been worth it.”

Rowena, seemingly satisfied that the spider was gone, turned and advanced toward the two of them with murder in her eyes. The still-flaming cloak back-lit her ominously as she approached. 

Sal’s eyes widened.

“I need to make my escape and if I don’t do it now, I never will. Cover me, will you?”

Hengist stepped back toward the gate, shrugging.

“I’m uh, on guard duty. Can’t help you.”

“Oh, come on!”

“No way, man, I like being alive. Nice knowing you though.”

To Sal’s credit, he actually stood his ground while Rowena stomped up to him like a mountain troll.

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t turn you into a spider right now.” she gritted out.

“Uh...I’ll never do it again?”

“You speak only in lies. What makes this time different?” She scowled at him with a face like thunder.

To Hengist’s utter disbelief, another spider was making its way up the collar of the Lady’s kirtle, waving its little legs.

Sal had clearly spotted it as well, because all the color drained out of his face.

“This time is different...because...because I didn’t put the spider there this time!”

The instant he said this, he took off running faster than Hengist had ever seen him go.

For a minute, Hengist actually thought he was going make it – he got to maybe ten steps away from the door to the Hufflepuff dormitory, where Helga was just stepping out.

But Lady Hraefnclawu hadn’t learned her spell-casting on the battlefield for nothing.

A flash of lightning blue enveloped him, and a spider fell neatly into Helga Hufflepuff’s outstretched hand.

She immediately began to berate the two of them alternately, holding the spider protectively to her bosom, while the Lady threw her arms up. 

Hengist couldn’t see the spider, but he imagined it was pretty pleased with itself. 

He wondered if anyone would care if he drank on the job, and then he realized that they were all engaged in the shenanigans further up the meadow, where Lord Gryffindor’s booming voice had also joined the hubbub.

Maybe if he drank enough mead he wouldn’t have to listen to their craziness anymore...


	2. Wild Goose Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is actually a lot older than The Spider, but follows the same theme...don't annoy Rowena. Just don't.

“Rowena, if you spend any more time in that privy, you’re going to get piles!” Helga chastised when Rowena had finally come out. “What on earth do you do in there?”

Annoyed, Rowena started to respond, but without missing a beat, Godric and Salazar chimed in in unison.

“She thinks!”

The pair of them dodged here first swipe and retreated up the road toward the lake, laughing like madmen.

“You two sound like a couple of migrating geese!” Rowena yelled after them. As she was saying this a devious look appeared on her face and she glanced mischievously at Helga.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Later:

“No, if you’re going to act like geese then you can be geese.” Rowena said smugly, although she had to shout to be heard over all the honking.


	3. It's a little small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An important life lesson: If you don't get to the inn on time, a goat will chew on your hair.

“I told you we shoulda left yesterday. There were still multiple rooms in the inn yesterday. Good ones even!”

“Shut up, Sal.”

“But noooo, there was a library, the town had books-oof!”

Taken off guard by Rowena’s wand-abetted shove, he tripped and fell face first onto the tiny bed. She smiled sweetly.

“Don’t shove each other, it’s not nice.” Helga said absentmindedly, moving to begin unpacking.

“I didn’t shove her!” Sal protested, raising his head from the bed.

“Okay, dear.”

He grumbled. “Whatever. I’m stayin’ here.”

Godric, who had just come in from making sure their horses were stabled, rolled his eyes.

“Hey, at least expand it first, you slugabed.” Sal just snored at him.

“I know you’re not really asleep. Hey. Hey Sal. I caught a mouse in the stable.”

His friend cracked an eye open at that and Rowena and Godric burst out laughing.

“Aw fuck off Godric, you know I can’t help it.” Sal groaned.

“I know, I know, it just gets you every time. Come on, get up. Are you really going to make us all sleep on the floor?”

“Catch me a real mouse an' then we’ll talk.” Sal closed his eye again.

Rowena rolled her eyes. “It’s been almost three weeks since we finished the Animagus ritual. Don’t pretend like you’re still having cravings.”

“Ugh, you’re all so picky. The bed’s plenty big enough for all of us.” He rolled over onto his back.

“Sal, it’s maybe four feet wide.”

“Great, one for each of us.”

Rowena shoved his feet over so she could sit down and look through her satchel.

“At least take your boots off, for Oðinn’s sake, they’re covered in mud. I swear sometimes you must have been raised in a barn.” She groused, standing up and moving to look in her bags over in the corner.

Sal raised a hand and snapped his fingers lazily, eyes still closed.

A very surprised goat appeared on top of Rowena’s bags. It baaed. She shrieked.

She vanished the goat and turned to glare at him.

“You’ll conjure farm animals but you won’t expend the energy to expand the damn bed???”

The goat reappeared in the other corner of the room.

“Ugh!”

Sal cackled to himself, but when Helga finally split the bed in two with a wave he fell into the gap with a shriek of his own. Godric burst out laughing again.

She reformed the bed, now twice as big, and Sal slid out from underneath, looking very disgruntled.

“It’s all dusty under there.”

“Did you find any mice though?” Godric asked him, still chortling. He sat down on the bed and stretched out, but the straw pillow immediately began flapping about very close to his head.

“Woah-hey! Who is doing that-”

Sal sat on the floor, leaning back on his hands, watching the spectacle. 

“It ain’t me this time!”

Cursing, Godric rolled off the bed and took the pillow with him. There was a thump as he fell onto the floorboards on the other side. 

Helga smiled and took her own seat on the bed, putting her feet up and beginning to put what looked like the hundredth patch into Godric’s ratty old hat.

The goat began chewing on his hair.

“What-there’s straw right here! And you choose my hair? Sal, you conjured an idiot goat.”

“Oh, excuse me, I’ll conjure a smart goat next time. He can teach for you.”

Godric huffed and sat up, looking across the bed at his best friend. His hair was standing up at strange angles.

“Rude. And Helga, you wound me.”

“Would you like to patch your own hat?” She asked him pleasantly, holding out the hat and its hovering needle.

“Nope, no, you’re doing such a great job! I’ll sit over here.”

“Like he even could.” Sal sniggered.

“I can do needlework just fine! I just...choose not to.”

Sal rolled his eyes.

“Yeah...did you forget that I took care of your gear when you were a teenager? I saw the work you did whenever you tried to repair your own stuff.”

Godric frowned.

“What? My gear was always perfectly sound.”

“Yeah, because I would fix it! Your stitches were the size of my head and more lopsided than you when you’re in your cups.”

Godric sprang to his feet.

“You take that back! I can stitch with precision and hold my alcohol too!”

“Have you been drinking? Please don’t do drunk charmwork again, Godric.” Helga said, putting down the hat to look at him concernedly.

Rowena, sitting with unattainable poise in the corner of the dirty little room, turned a page in her book.

“Again?” she murmured, without looking up. Sal would have applauded her if he hadn’t been laughing hysterically.

Godric blushed to the exact shade of his cloak.

“I have not been drinking! Please give me my hat, Helga. I would like to repair it myself.”

She floated it over to him hesitantly; he took it and sat muttering to himself in the corner with his back to them.

Sal leaned his head back against the bedside, Helga put a hand in his hair, and for a number of minutes all was peaceful.

That was until a splattering noise interrupted them.

“Salazar.”

“Hmm?”

“The goat is still in the room.”

“Oh yes.”

The noise stopped abruptly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Salazar turns into a snake halfway through the night and in the morning Godric has accidentally created the Sorting Hat.


End file.
